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26.  Mail Services (Reference) Interactions of sendmail With Name Services Interactions of NIS and sendmail  Previous   Contents   Next 
   
 

Interactions of sendmail With NIS and DNS

The following list describes the interactions of sendmail with NIS and DNS and provides some guidance.

  • Mail domain name - If you are setting up NIS as the primary name service, sendmail automatically strips the first component of the NIS domain name and uses the result as the mail domain name. For example, ebs.admin.acme.com becomes admin.acme.com.

  • Mail host name - When the DNS forwarding feature is turned on, queries that NIS cannot resolve are forwarded to DNS, so you do not need a mailhost entry in the NIS host map.

  • Full host names - Although NIS does not "understand" full host names, DNS does understand. This requirement is satisfied when you follow the regular procedure for setting up NIS and DNS.

  • Matching full and short host names - For every host entry in the NIS host table, you must have a corresponding host entry in DNS.

  • Multiple NIS domains in one mail domain - All NIS host maps under a common mail domain should have the same set of host entries. For example, the host map in the ebs.admin.acme.com domain should be the same as the host map in the esg.admin.acme.com domain. Otherwise, one address might work in one NIS domain, but fail in the other NIS domain.

For task information, refer to "How to Use DNS With sendmail" and "Administering Mail Alias Files (Task Map)" in Chapter 25, Mail Services (Tasks).

Interactions of NIS+ and sendmail

The following list describes the interactions of sendmail with NIS+ and provides some guidance.

  • Mail domain name - If you are setting up NIS+ as your primary name service, sendmail can check the mail domain from the NIS+ sendmailvars table, a two-column NIS+ table with one key column and one value column. To set up your mail domain, you must add one entry to this table. This entry should have the key column set to the literal string maildomain and the value column set to your mail domain name (for example, admin.acme.com). Although NIS+ allows any string in the sendmailvars table, the suffix rule still applies for the mail system to work correctly. You can use nistbladm to add the maildomain entry to the sendmailvars table. Notice in the following example that the mail domain is a suffix of the NIS+ domain.

    nistbladm -A key="maildomain" value=<mail domain> sendmailvars.org_dir.<NIS+ domain>

  • Mailhost host name - You must have a mailhost entry in the NIS+ hosts table.

  • Full host names - NIS+ "understands" the full host name. Following the regular NIS+ setup procedure satisfies this requirement.

  • Matching full and short host names - To satisfy this requirement, you can duplicate the entries in the host table, or you can enter all host entries in the user name service domains into a master host table at mail domain level.

  • Multiple NIS domains in one mail domain - To satisfy this requirement, you can duplicate the entries in all the host tables, or you can type all host entries in the user name service domains into a master host table at mail domain level. In effect, you are merging (logical or physical) multiple host tables into one host table. Therefore, the same host name cannot be reused in the multiple name service domain that shares a common mail domain.

For task information, refer to "Administering Mail Alias Files (Task Map)" in Chapter 25, Mail Services (Tasks).

Interactions of sendmail With NIS+ and DNS

The following list describes the interactions of sendmail with NIS+ and DNS and provides some guidance.

  • Mail domain name -- If you are setting up NIS+ as your primary name service, sendmail can check the mail domain from the NIS+ sendmailvars table, a two-column NIS+ table with one key column and one value column. To set up your mail domain, you must add one entry to this table. This entry should have the key column set to the literal string maildomain and the value column set to the your mail domain name (for example, admin.acme.com). Although NIS+ allows any string in the sendmailvars table, the suffix rule still applies for the mail system to work correctly. You can use nistbladm to add the maildomain entry to the sendmailvars table. Notice in the following example that the mail domain is a suffix of the NIS+ domain.

    nistbladm -A key="maildomain" value=<mail domain> sendmailvars.org_dir.<NIS+ domain>

  • Mailhost host name -- If your network uses both NIS+ and DNS as the source for the host database, you can put the mailhost entry in either the NIS+ or DNS host table. Ensure that your users include NIS+ and DNS as the source for the host database in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file.

  • Full host names -- Both NIS+ and DNS "understand" full host names. Following the regular NIS+ and DNS setup procedures satisfies this requirement.

  • Matching full and short host names -- For every host entry in the NIS+ host table, you must have a corresponding host entry in DNS.

  • Multiple NIS domains in one mail domain -- To satisfy this requirement, you can duplicate the entries in all the host tables, or you can type all host entries in the user name service domains into a master host table at the mail domain level.

For task information, refer to "Administering Mail Alias Files (Task Map)" and "How to Use DNS With sendmail" in Chapter 25, Mail Services (Tasks).

 		 
 
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